Inspecting while you build
The biggest choice in inspection is when. Ply-by-ply (static) inspection stops the machine after every ply; in-situ inspection measures during layup from sensors on the head or in the cell, so the machine keeps working. Going further, a second robot can follow the layup with its own sensors and close the loop: stream data, detect a defect, feed back to the placement robot, which adjusts heat, path, speed, compaction or tension.
Predict · at 0:51 in the video
Twenty plies. Each takes twenty minutes to lay, and fifteen minutes to inspect with the machine stopped. Inspect in situ instead. How much shorter is the job?
Stopping, it's twenty times thirty-five: seven hundred minutes. In situ, it's the laying time alone: four hundred. That's forty-three percent shorter.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 6, section 2
- Chapter 6, section 2.2.A
- Chapter 6, section 2.2.B
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
